It’s Christmas, for God’s sake

I’ve been watching a bunch of ‘holiday’ programming on television, and short of EWTN, have found very little Christ in the programming. There is certainly lots of wreaths, trees, lights, snow, bows, presents, gift giving, dinner preparation, table decoration, talk of family getting together, and so on. But we forget what all that stuff leads to…the baby Jesus. All of that stuff is fine and dandy, but just as Easter is not just about bunnies, chicks, chocolate, pretty dresses, etc., Christ is the reason we celebrate all over the world.

I’ve read from some pretty saintly people that, when Christ was born, not only the shepherds in the fields and the Wise Men knew about it, but the Romans did as well. In Rome a temple to a pagan god collapsed on the day Christ was born, and an oracle proclaimed that it was because a virgin gave birth to a child. There was great rejoicing in the heavens and on the earth.

When Mary said “Yes” to the Archangel Gabriel, the entire space-time continuum was changed at that moment. We went from BC to AD in that moment.

Christ’s was the only birth that was heralded centuries before it happened.

This week, I urge you, in the hustle and bustle of the ‘holiday season’, to take time out and think what Christ’s birth means to the world. For without Mary’s yes, His birth, His ministry, and especially His Passion, Death, and Resurrection, there would be no Christianity.

One of the first things I blogged on three years ago was an amazing documentary, not approved, or anything, called Bethlehem’s Star, which says that Christ may have been born exactly on Dec. 25, and why. www.bethlehemstar.net takes you to the website, and you can see it on EWTN sometime this holiday season, Dec 22 at 9:30 AM Eastern, and Dec 29, 2 pm Eastern Standard Time, specificially.

I was gone last week participating in our little parish’s mission, which I organized and hosted. I was a little disappointed at attendance and outcome, but overall, we had a good mission, except that I sprained my ankle the night of the first mission…